Between the Shadows
by Magentian
Summary: AU. Lunarex knows nothing about who she was, or where she came from. Joining with the Organization, she seeks answers... and finds three children from a destroyed world, who claim to be her friends...
1. Prologue

It was a quiet Sunday morning, a morning quite undistinguished from all others, when Robert found the Book.

* * *

A few rays of light spilled through the roof of the abandoned warehouse to trickle determinedly onto the floor. Although they tried their best to spread out and flank the enemy, the shadows within held their own. 

"Sanahx, get the candles ready."

Shana scowled. "I keep telling you, call me _Auxra._" Nevertheless, she did as she was told.

The older girl grinned, a rare, callous grin, then turned. "Robert, do you have the incense?"

A pudgy, innocent-looking boy sitting in a patch of sunlight looked up from the chest of drawers he was rummaging through. "Yes. I found it." Then, very hesitantly, "Lauren, don't you think we ought to…"

The girl didn't _glare_ at him exactly. She didn't need to. She just looked at him, her eyes seeming swallowed by the darkness of her pupils – looked at him as though he was scarcely worth looking at. Robert swallowed, but bravely went on.

"I mean, it just seems to me that this all sounds and feels… kind of _Satanic._ I mean… we don't know where it came from, this book. And these instructions –"

"Do you want to leave, Robert?" Lauren's voice held no emotion, but something prickled uncomfortably down his skin anyway. He wished she would step out of the shadows, so he could see more of her than just her pale face swimming in the dimness of the warehouse.

"Yeah, we already set all this stuff up, and rehearsed, and _everything_," added Shana. The thin brunette was nimbly placing candles around the sigil on the floor. "It'd be kinda pointless to stop now…"

"But Steve is hungry!" came a jocund voice from the corner. Steve's rotund figure lumbered into the sigil with an armload of jars, producing a wail of protesting despair from Shana as his careless feet knocked a few of her candles to the ground. Heedless of her cries, he squatted and carefully placed the jars onto the dusty floor, one by one.

"Steve can wait and accept that no one cares," said Lauren. She drew closer and knelt next to the jars, turning the labels and reading them. "And he can stop referring to himself in third person, too. All right. Mercury, sulfur, saltpeter… dried hawthorn and mimosa…thyme…"

* * *

The front cover looked like no book he had ever received. It displayed a shimmering pink marking in the shape of a stylized heart, overlaid on a blue background. On the recto, a crimson heart-shaped symbol bearing a thorny "X" design adorned a backdrop of purple. The black-draped spine bore no title or author; the inside pages were covered in words which, although they seemed to make sense at first glance, quickly proved on further inspection to be gibberish. 

Robert had given the book to Shana, who had realized the cover's symbols for what they were – the sigils of Kingdom Hearts. Dumbfounded and elated at the discovery, she had showed her friend Steve, who was puzzled by the meaning of the long and nonsensical words inside.

As was typical procedure for long words that no one understood, Steve asked Lauren to decipher their meaning.

So it began.

* * *

"Right." Lauren stood, dusting her hands. "I think we're ready." 

"Finally," breathed Steve. "After all those months getting ready…"

"You think this'll really get us to the Kingdom Hearts world?" Shana asked eagerly, her blue eyes wide with the realization of untold fantasies.

Lauren shrugged noncommittally. "Who knows," she said, folding her arms. "After all this work, it'd better."

"Come on, Robert! Join the circle." Steve had crossed to the patch of light where the boy still knelt in thoughtful hesitation, and, taking his shoulder, playfully rocked him gently back and forth in a nagging fashion.

"Don't worry," added Shana, with a disappointed sigh. "It probably won't work anyway, right? And all of this will have been for nothing."

"Still…" Robert gave up. He didn't think he could express properly his foreboding in words. And anyway, if that was the case… why was everyone so excited?

He glanced up at Steve for a moment, then sighed. The inescapable fact was that he was excited to find out if it would work, too. Robert stood, and almost fell under the weight of Steve's enthusiastic swaying.

"Okay." He took his place at the side of the sigil.

Lauren opened the book impressively to another well-thumbed page. Her lips moved with the syllables of the mysterious words she had decoded. At length, she looked up. Her somber, owlish eyes, dark with excitement, bore into them, and the grin on her lips slowly resolved itself on their faces as well.

It was time.

The girl began, slowly and softly and then with greater vehemence, to read.

The first miracle – the candles which surrounded the sigil's flowing lines burst into flame all of their own. The light of them shone and guttered unbearably on the eyes of the four, accustomed to the dark interior of the warehouse. Robert's eyes grew wide, Shana repressed a squee, but the four didn't budge, rooted to the spot by the suspense of the moment. Lauren finished the first paragraph.

The next moment, the light of the candles was gone, consumed by the darkness of the portal which seemed to arise from the squirming, inky sigil between them. The windowlike opening whorled and twisted, a darkness so repellent that it pushed itself away, growing wider with each word. Shana was unable to bite back a gasp – Steve threw his hand out to stop her from uttering more, but the portal spiraled heedlessly in front of them. The dizzying sensation of success flooded into them – they had done it, it was true! How could Lauren control herself enough to read? But, somehow, she did. The second paragraph ended.

Midway through the third, everything began to go wrong.

* * *

Lauren was logical; she had a mind like a steel trap. And once a puzzle was presented to her, no matter how unsolvable, she would not rest until the mystery of it had been opened and laid bare for all to see. 

Still, enlisting Shana, Steve, and Robert for help had proven invaluable. It was she who had decoded the rituals described in the book's unusual cipher, but it was they who had, with a mixture of hard work, petty theft, and blind luck, unearthed the odd and manifold ingredients that the book called for.

If not for Lauren's determination – and Lauren, in her own, ruthless fashion, could be very persuasive – it might never have been done. But the innocent joy that the three found in imagining themselves members of the Kingdom Hearts universe was motivation enough. Shana had even given everyone new names, after the style of Organization XIII: Shana became Auxra, and Robert, Phaux. Lauren, disdaining such made-up names as being false and insinuating laziness on the part of their creators, had crafted her own name: Lunarex. And Steve – on his own insistence - was Stevex, the 'x' remaining silent. He claimed it was foreign.

On some days – only a few, mind you, and very far between – the three's antics had even made Lauren smile.

* * *

It was then that everyone realized the sun had gone out. 

It was not that it had simply _set_ – this was altogether the wrong feeling, the wrong air, for a sunset. This was more like the utter disappearance of light altogether – as though not only the sun, but light itself as they knew it, had ceased to exist. It had been replaced with a strange, dim red luminosity, a dry, decayed-feeling illumination, false as the grin of a skull. Robert glanced fearfully at a trembling Shana, but they did not dare move. The discipline created by fear of Lauren's temper rooted them to their positions.

Lauren herself continued to read, the book before her illuminated by one last, single candle.

Then, three syllables before the end of the passage, Robert could bear the strain no longer – he looked up. The blue sky above had turned a bloody, jeering red. It glowed sullenly with a dour luminance of its own, a weak and corrupt perversion of what had shone only moments before.

That was the breaking point. Robert yelled, and Shana screamed, and Steve, glancing upward and taking in the horrific tableau, took a step backward in terror – then barreled away from the circle toward the door, as though hoping to break the spell, hoping to escape. He flung the entrance open – and stopped short again.

The other two surrounded him, staring out into what had once been their home. Behind them, Lauren's soft voice continued to sound out syllables in that strange tongue.

A portal of darkness had opened in the crimson, star-speckled sky. From it issued a colossal red dragon, all whirling claws and dire fangs. Its many heads snapped and wheeled at the stars, and the stars fell without protest, devoured. And there – there on its chest glinted the emblem of the Heartless, a sign that burned with a terrible new light.

The earth rumbled beneath their feet, and more and more came, titanic, draconic beings, as though Hell itself had vomited them forth. Great dark insects with the tails of scorpions, horned beasts from the depths of the sea, Heartless tall as skyscrapers and broad as buildings, dancing black-draped spirits in the thousands and the tens of thousands. The sound of weeping and helpless screams filled the air. With a sudden, horrible knowledge, the three realized what the sound was. It was the shrieking of their own neighbors. People they knew, people they saw every day, were being murdered in place, falling to darkness… or simply going mad at the sight of it.

Beneath the furious onslaught, it seemed as though all the planet was dying, succumbing to the darkness all at once. Plants withered to blackness and ash before their eyes in the wake of the invaders. The death seemed to penetrate to the heart of all the world. All around was the smell of entropy and decay.

After a few minutes, the weeping gave way to a silence that was far worse. Then came the final atrocity: with the popping sound of bubbles erupting, the Shadows crawled from the corrupted air, creeping across the land in droves, their blank yellow eyes and clamoring antennae speaking of a mindless, all-consuming predatory hunger.

Shana, Robert and Steve would have wept if they could, but could only stare, mute and paralyzed with horror. The thought was shared among all of them – _What have we done?_

Precious minutes passed. They stood there, lost in the deadly silence, not daring to breathe for fear the Shadows would take notice. Not daring to think, for fear that they would remember their part in it all.

A sudden realization hit Steve. "Lauren," he whispered, turning his back on the desecrated world. His eyes were wide with fear.

But she stood there, indomitable, safe from harm. She had finished reading; the book was stowed under her arm. Her eyes seemed to glow with a pale yellow light all their own. Somehow, it fit her.

"We've… we've gotta get out of here," faltered Shana.

Lauren nodded her agreement, motioning to the portal. Her voice seemed to crack and distort, becoming the voice of many, a teaming legion of hungry, doomed spirits.

"After you," they said.

They looked at each other, then at the ashen ground, as though eye contact were too painful, too reminiscent of normalcy. Then, one by one, Shana, Steve, and Robert stepped shakily up to the portal, taking a final look back at the world they had once belonged in.

Inconceivable. That thought dwelt in each of their pallid faces in turn. On top of everything else, this was the last inconceivability – to give up and leave behind everything that they had once had, with no hope of returning. To know that the blood of the Planet was upon their hands, and that they would never be called to account – they would roam free. To continue on in the face of terror and madness, knowing that they were responsible, that everyone they had ever known, their families, their friends, lay dead or worse because of their own terrible, selfish curiosity.

But they each did it. And slowly, with a shudder of distaste bordering revulsion, each one of them stepped into the portal, leaving the world they had known.

Left alone at the end, as she had always preferred it, Lauren watched the last stars fall, watched the Shadows rejoice with eyes beaming like yellow lanterns. Distantly, in the wake of the growing hunger that overtook her, she was reminded of a book she had once read. How had it gone?

"O brave new world," she told the Shadows, all at play within their wasteland. "O brave new world, that has such people in it."

And she walked into the portal, and never returned again.


	2. Chapter 1

Lit by warming lamps and blinking neon signs, the houses and streets of Traverse Town shimmered with bluish light against the dimness of the night sky. The smell of coffee and clear air pervaded the square. Strains of jazz leaked from a nearby café to puddle in the dingy cobbled corners and echo against the sandstone streets. There was an almost imperceptible air of relaxation and relief to it, despite the shadows that clung to every corner like cobwebs.

It was a city of constant evening – born of the final evenings of countless worlds and countless stars, and yet it had never fallen. It was a city of endless darkness, but yet, among all the worlds, it was the place in which the survivors of the darkness felt most at home.

The three stared at their surroundings, their eyes taking in nothing.

"This can't be real," Robert whispered, falteringly, falling to his knees.

That he was not referring to the town around them went without saying.

Shana shook her head, slowly, in disbelief. She turned to Steve, who looked as pale as she felt. "He's right… isn't he? It's not real. It's not… right. My family… my brothers… my … my mom…"

She was unable to continue. Her body shook with repressed emotion, until, finally, her face crumpled and she buried it in Steve's embrace.

Steve just looked around – at the buildings, the lights, the dark, dark sky. For once in his life, he was at a loss for words. He looked down soberly at Robert, who had doubled over on the ground, shaking with sobs as forceful as retches, and remembered his own brothers – remembered a million fights, a million smiles. So many things left unsaid. So many that could never be unsaid…

"They're all gone," whispered Shana. "And it's all our fault."

The silence dragged on, a terrible abyss of noise, broken only by the sound of tears. Passersby glanced at them as they passed, then averted their eyes with an air of sympathetic respect, aware of the tragedy that had preceded their coming. Steve's eyes were fixed on a spot just above the rooftops, as though trying not to think… or to cry.

Then, after a long, long moment, Robert broke the silence with a stifled hiccup. As though angry at his own weakness, he lashed out, one fist hitting the pavement. "It's not our fault!" he proclaimed, his timid voice harsh as a sob.

A beat. Robert got to his feet. His eyes, clouded with tears as they were, sparkled with white-hot rage.

"We weren't the ones who did this!" he spat. "We didn't start it. _She_ did."

Shana lifted her head at the thought. "Lauren…"

"Guys –" Steve began.

"And I… I tried to stop her," Robert went on, blue eyes widening with the memory. "I _told_ her … I _tried_ to stop her… but she didn't listen! She did it anyway!"

His voice had risen – he stopped to wipe his eyes on a shirtsleeve, then threw his hand down and looked around resentfully like a cornered animal. "Where did she go? Did she get out, too? I'll… I'll find her! I'll find her, and then I'll –"

"_Robert_." Steve interrupted again, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder. Robert shuddered in rage and pain, but fell silent. "Calm down. We can't all go charging in different directions looking for Lauren. We have to stick together. Or else, all that's happened will have been for nothing…"

"It already is for nothing, isn't it?" Shana said softly. She sat down next to Robert on the cold stone street. "We shouldn't have escaped… When the whole world was being destroyed, why didn't we stop and think? Why didn't we go and find everyone else?" Her voice, usually so chipper, was dull from crying. "Why did we run away? Why did we survive, when…"

Steve shook his head. "I don't know, Shana." He knelt down next to both of them. "I can't know. None of us can know anything about why it all happened. But I know one thing." He glanced at the two of them, for once very serious. "We can't just lay down and die because of it. We can't give up. Not now. Not when it's important. We're all that's left of our world… without us… everything we knew will just …disappear."

His voice trailed off. Then he glanced at Robert and added, "And we can't split up, or go chasing after Lauren for revenge or answers. We can't do anything like that… all we can do is try to go on. We're all we've got left. Don't forget that."

Robert remained silent for a long while as a breeze swept down the street. Then he wiped his nose again and said hoarsely, "But we can't just let her get away with what she did. If we can find her, together… we have to get revenge. We can't just let her run free, and mess up anything else."

"No, think about it," Steve said. "We don't know how much Lauren knew about it all. She might have had no idea of what was coming. If that's the case, then she's no more to blame than us. It's the Heartless that caused everything…"

Shana nodded. "I don't think I could fight against Lauren, either," she said, with a bit of her old buoyancy. "I …_knew_ her. And that would just _suck_, y'know? I wouldn't want to hurt someone that I knew."

Steve bobbed his head in agreement. "If anything, we've got to start out with the Heartless. They're the ones to blame." He stood up, brushing the dust from his shorts and hitching them up a bit. Then, evidently deciding that he had been far too solemn in the past few moments, he placed his hands on Robert's shoulders and shook him gently back and forth, as though repeatedly trying to force a shopping cart into a tight spot. The action caused Robert's head to bobble back and forth in an interesting parody of a nod. "Come on," he intoned encouragingly, "whaddaya say, Robert?"

Robert endured the shaking for a few moments, then turned and swatted Steve's hands away. His tearstained face didn't quite make it into the mischievous grin which Steve usually provoked, but it tried bravely anyway.

Traverse Town was not a particularly hopeful place, but it was an enduring one. It was a place like no other, a city that was at once warm and cold, human and inhuman, full of light and yet perpetually dim. Blinking signs and glowing lamps fought a perpetual battle against the bleak hopelessness of the stars that reigned over the city sky. Darkness lurked in every corner, in that city of eternal night – and yet one could almost hope, there, that the darkness would stay in its corner, would remain only darkness, instead of something ominous and terrifying, something _more._

Like the survivors of each, unique tragedy, it endured. Traverse Town was a city of humanity unlike any other; and humanity, though its past may be steeped in blood and darkness, still endures each day, to strive and hope for the light to come.

* * *

When she came to, the only thing she was conscious of was an intense pain in her chest. It throbbed and pulsed like a living thing, gradually resolving into a deep, cutting emptiness that merely took her breath away. Then her body twitched and jerked as she remembered arms, legs, a torso; there was a long, rattling gasp as her lungs recalled their function.

_Have I been… dead?_

She sat up, panting, and stared about her. Her eyes were wide with fear. The dark alleyway was unfamiliar, and the stars above ... she didn't recognize them.

Then a new shock came. She didn't recognize _herself._

What had she looked like? Snatches floated by, tantalizingly. She could remember brown hair and … and green eyes, perhaps? She remembered a snatch of a song and a harsh laugh and a quick wit and a deep sadness – everything so dim and so far away that she could scarcely think of herself as having been or done any of it. And vowels and consonants floated through her head, with no particular arrangement. Everything inside was chaos.

_Who am I? _she asked herself, and then, more urgently, _Who _am_ I?!_

_L_… she could remember, and then _u… a… n…_

Footsteps. They were coming toward her.

She looked up, and a snatch of her own hair caught her eye. It wasn't brown. It was a dull orange, shot through with streaks of dark red. Her mind tried impossibly to reconcile this with her memories, and then gave up and went for coffee. A frustrated murmur passed her lips.

The shadowy figure illuminated in light at the end of the alleyway paused and turned at the slight sound, readying his weapon. Then he stood upright. The weapon vanished. More impossibilities. Surely she wasn't _dreaming…_her dreams weren't this…_ lame_.

"Are you okay?" The boy stepped into the shadows, closer to her. He was youthful, with a round face and a turned-up nose smattered in freckles; his brown hair stuck out at odd angles, as though he hadn't combed it in days. Blue eyes took her in with a compassionate kind of curiosity. Two strange creatures flanked him; like the boy, she found something oddly familiar about them that she couldn't place.

"I'm… fine," she said, and, proving it, shakily stood up on her own, ignoring the hand he proffered. "Thanks anyway."

"Oh. Okay," the boy said, looking almost disappointed.

Then he smiled, a wide, open, sunny smile. "I'm Sora." Sora hitched his thumb at the two strange beasts trailing him. "That's Donald, and Goofy."

Donald and Goofy waved cheerily. She felt very bemused by it all. She wondered which of the floating letters in her head would suit her as a name.

Sora saved her the trouble of an introduction. "What're you doing back here, all by yourself?"

That was another conundrum. "I… I don't really remember," the girl said indistinctly, staring out into the distance. Then she seemed to focus momentarily. "I think … I'm looking for my friends. But I don't know where they are, or even what they look like…"

"Aww, no worries, then," Sora said, crossing his arms behind his head, his smile growing wider.

"No… worries?"

"Yeah!" He nodded. "I've traveled all over, looking for my friends. So I know it for a fact. As long as you keep your friends in your heart… it doesn't matter what the circumstances are. I know you're going to find them, one day. You just have to have faith, and keep searching."

The girl blinked, slowly. "…Oh."

Sora nodded again. "Well, good luck anyway! Come on, guys." He waved, then turned and ran off, out of the alleyway, into the light.

She stared after them. The rising derision in her mind had a curious effect on her. It made her feel slightly more centered, more _her. _Whoever 'she' was.

_So.__ It's all really that easy, huh? _

_Just keep blindly hoping and searching, and fate or luck will take over from there?_

_Riiiight__ I'll get right on that._

The girl began to follow after them, almost instinctively. Then she decided against it. She sank back into the shadows of the alley, sitting on a discarded box. Her chest throbbed with an ache akin to hunger; she put a hand over it, and bowed her head. And deep within, she began to feel it: a terrible, longing, bottomless emptiness.

It had first begun when she had talked to the boy. Sora. Something about her situation, something about _what she was, _bothered her, bothered her more than her scattered memory, more than her lack of a name. She felt a sharp contrast between the two of them. He had something she lacked. She was, in some intrinsic, fundamental way…

A noise behind her made her start. She swung her head wildly, her long, strange, frizzy orange hair tracing behind like a shadow.

"You feel as though you're missing something."

Behind her stood a portal of swirling darkness so repellent that it pushed itself away, widening to reveal the shape of a dark-cloaked figure. The thing stepped out of the shadowy gateway, which dwindled, shrinking behind him until thorny vines of time and space pushed it back into nonexistence. A hood obscured his face, but he walked with a distinctive posture, his hips thrust forward, shoulders back, arms swinging as he crossed the distance between them and stood in front of her.

"Am I right?" the figure asked, folding its arms. She simply stared up at it, struck dumb.

It went on, taking her silence for assent. "Your memories are scattered, scrambled; you can't even recall your own name. And what little you do recall feels foreign in a way you can't describe. But worse… far worse… is the feeling of emptiness and futility that pervades everything." Despite his dramatic words, the speech that he gave sounded somehow flat and empty of inflection, as though he were reciting from memory.

"Minutes and hours can slip by and you have no recollection of how they have passed, because there's nothing to make time stay. You lack something… something that had the power to give your life meaning and purpose." The cloaked figure made a dismissive gesture. "But you're not altogether upset about it. You can't bring yourself to be. And this's what confuses you most of all."

By now she had recovered herself enough to remember her usual, arrogant self. "So who are you, kid?" Her voice sounded harsh and metallic compared to the golden thrum of the boy's. "And what qualifies you to be an expert on how I feel?"

"Because." He raised his gloved hands and smoothed the hood back from his face. It settled onto his back, revealing a blond-haired boy with full, chapped lips and blue eyes that were at once piercing and strangely apathetic. He smiled at her, and she felt a distinct sense of alarm. She _knew_ him. Or, at any rate, she _should _know him. "I felt the same way. Not," he added, "that one can exactly call it feeling. But you know how it is."

"And your name?" Her eyes narrowed. She grew tired of this boy's sympathetic attitude, and of the way his face swam in her mind, looking for its appointed place in her memory.

"It's Roxas," the boy said simply. He proffered a hand to her, which she ignored, standing up herself. "What about you? Do you remember your name?"

She hesitated, trying one last time to will the letters into obeisance. "L… l…" Finally, a flash of insight. That was it! "Lauren!" she gasped, and then, glancing up and recovering her dignity, she cleared her throat and amended, "It's Lauren."

Roxas shook his head. "Maybe it was, once." He gazed down the alleyway over her shoulder, as though seeing something she couldn't. "Not anymore."

He stretched forth a hand, palm outward toward her. Before she could wonder what he was doing, and deliver a sufficiently witty and scathing editorial on it, she was stopped short. Letters appeared in the air, partly transparent, glowing with rays of white light.

"You no longer feel anything," Roxas said, his face obscured by the light of the letters and the darkness of his gloved hand. "And you never will again. Life as you knew it has no meaning to you anymore. But I can give you a new name, a new meaning, and a new life. Do you want that?"

"I…" She blinked. _What a weird, really intrusive kid._ But what did she have to lose? "I guess so. Sure, go for it. I've got nothing better to do."

Behind the hand, Lauren thought she saw him crack a smile. He motioned. The letters swirled around her, whipping her hair up around her ears. She fought the urge to poke the spinning circle and see if it would take her finger off like the old wives' tales said. Roxas flung out his hand as though to stop a roulette wheel, and a new letter appeared. 'X.' The other letters lined up obediently behind it, as confused in order as her thoughts had been.

"Lunarex," he intoned. "That's your new name." He let the hand fall, and his eyes scanned her face – or was he gazing down the alleyway again, searching for someone? "I'll take you to your new home now, if you like."

She glanced behind her, but the alleyway was empty. Turning back, her preternaturally-active mind picked apart his words like flies on a carcass. "That thing you say I'm missing… it's a heart, isn't it?" she mused, bringing her hand to her face in thought.

Roxas looked startled. "You're right."

"They say home is where the heart is. So…" She let her hand drop into a round, expansive gesture. "If you and I have no heart, how can we ever possess a home?"

Roxas laughed, and stretched out a hand, letting it fall open toward her with catlike grace. He grinned. "You know, you're pretty sharp. In a depressing kinda way."

"I do try."

With a faint _wshh_ing noise, a portal opened behind her. Roxas let his hand drop to his side. "Anyway, you're right. We can't have a true home, us heartless things… us _Nobodies._ So our home is as heartless as we are. But we're working on that." He walked past her, turning back to grin again with his perfect white teeth. His thumb hitched at the portal. "Come on. I'll show you what I mean."

So she did.


	3. Chapter 2

Ke_clack_-ke_clack_-ke_clack_-ke_clack_-ke_clack_…

"Goddamn, this floor is noisy," Lunarex remarked, raising her voice over the echoing clamor of feet in the empty passageway. "How can you guys function if walking makes such a racket?"

Roxas, slightly ahead of her, simply shrugged. She rolled her eyes and followed obediently behind.

They had been traveling for several minutes now, one minute traipsing through a strange, empty plane which whorled and spun around them, the next stepping through a curtain of darkness into a large, empty city whose streets teemed with shadows. Their progress seemed to be upward now, taking them through a spiral circle of blank, white hallways. All throughout, Roxas had remained gravely, stubbornly silent, despite her best efforts to instigate a conversation.

Then, in front of a large, gray door, he came to a sudden halt, and snapped his fingers.

Thorny vines twirled and spun upward from the floor. In the next instant, strange beings were surrounding them, silvery and faceless, their limbs oscillating fluidly, pivoting in impossible ways with a liquid grace akin to water or mercury. Lunarex stared.

"I knew I was forgetting something," Roxas admitted.

He turned to address the new arrivals. "We have a new member. Make the necessary arrangements. Treat her as you would any of us."

The things made no motion of assent, but simply disappeared again in an interim flash of black and white vines. Roxas continued on down the hallway without explanation. Knowing she should feel more irritated at his silence than she did, Lunarex hastened to catch up.

"What was that?" she asked.

"They're these things called Dusks," Roxas said, glancing down a side corridor, then continuing on. Lunarex got the uncomfortable feeling that he had forgotten how to get wherever they were going. "Lesser Nobodies. They serve the Organization's top members. Not much personality," he added wryly, "but they're there when you need them, which is something."

"Top members?" Lunarex's eyes narrowed in thought, and a hand strayed to her mouth. Before she could contemplate his words or the mysterious Dusks, however, there was a minor interruption.

The sound of footsteps exploded down the corridor in a frenzy of clacks; a black-cloaked figure came tearing around a corner, pulled back with an audible gasp at realizing their presence, and skidded to a stop, within a hair's breadth of barreling straight into Roxas. The hood covering his face fell back as he wiped a few strands of errant blond hair out of his face, to reveal a young man with sea-green eyes and a vulnerable expression. His usual manic, nervous expression bore distinct traces of relief.

"Roxas!" he gasped, wiping his brow. "Geez, did _you_ ever show up at the right time!"

"Demyx?" Roxas asked, a note of surprise and something bordering disdain in his voice.

"There's a meeting, the Superior just called it, they sent me to find … you…" He stopped, having noticed Lunarex. "Wha… who are you?" His face twisted comically in confusion.

"You must be a mind-reader," she said coolly, "I was about to ask you the same question." She turned to her escort. "Roxas, mind introducing us?"

Demyx shook his head rapidly, loose tendrils of hair flying. "No, no, nooo! There's no time! Come on, both of you, it's gonna start!" And, seizing Roxas' hand, Demyx dragged the boy unceremoniously down the hallway and around the corner.

Lunarex followed them slowly, thoughtfully. Tracing their path, she turned the corner and continued on. Then she reached a room - a room so incredibly white it was nearly blinding. There, squinting in the reflected light of the World that Never Was, she beheld _them_ for the first time.

The seats of honor stretched yards above her head, reaching upward to the ceiling like ghostly trees. Upon each throne-like dais sat a dark-cloaked figure, hood drawn, face obscured in shadow. Thirteen – she counted quickly – thirteen monolithic chairs, with twelve occupants, anonymous and remote in their vantage points near the ceiling. It was an awe-inspiring sight – or, at least, she felt that it would have been, had things been different. Had _she _been different.

Roxas, head bare, knelt before the tallest seat. He rose as she approached, and continued his address.

"I found her in Traverse Town, and thought it best to bring her here," the boy said, an edge of defensiveness to his voice. His vivid blue eyes were filled with something – a strange vitality, smoldering defiance. Lunarex shivered. For the first time since she had met him, he seemed truly to _exist_ – to possess some quality or charisma that made up for all that he lacked. The cold fury seemed to fill him in some way, wiping away the indecision of the nothing-life, the non-being, that he had inherited by chance. "How was I to know, Superior?" he went on insolently. "No one ever bothered to tell _me_ we were capped at thirteen members."

"Roxas." The voice was slow, rich, and deep, a chocolatey-brown voice. Like toffee, it seemed to get stuck on certain words. The speaker drew out each syllable with languid fascination, as though savoring its taste. _A consummate orator?_ Lunarex thought, and then, with a disdainful shake of her head, _No, just a pompous creature that likes the sound of his own voice. _But she couldn't deny the unmistakable presence of the man sitting in the chair. It filled her with something akin to fear, something which – again, in another time, another life - might have become a deep, chilling sense of excitement.

"Do not worry," he said. "Rest assured, I will not punish you for this… unfortunate mistake." Roxas relaxed, but only by a hair. The voice went on. "I see now my error. You are new to this Organization; clearly, it is not enough to simply tell you what we are here for. I will assign someone to help you, an older member, one who has proven their loyalty to me…"

A hand rose to push back the dark hood obscuring the Superior's face, revealing skin as brown as toffee, and an elegant cascade of silver hair. But the man's eyes were a jarring orange, his mouth too broad and wide-lipped, sensual and savage at once. Xemnas' well-manicured fingers played about his sculpted chin in an expression of thoughtfulness so overblown that it became a mockery of that which it sought to imitate. _At best, a poor actor_, Lunarex thought, but she watched the mummery intently, waiting for action as those strange eyes traveled around the room.

"Axel," decided the Superior. He leaned back in his seat, gesturing expansively. "The boy is yours. You may do as you see fit to ensure that he understands."

From somewhere behind her, Lunarex could feel a fiery presence, a smirk. "Gotcha covered." The voice was wry, but not without respect.

Xemnas nodded, a low, solemn bow. His attention flickered back to Roxas. "If that is all you have to report…?"

Roxas bowed his head. "It is."

"Then we will begin our investigations of this girl. Please… step forward." The Superior's gaze was leveled at Lunarex, the orange eyes flashing with an exaggerated, threatening sort of politeness. "Have you been given a name?"

"Lunarex," she assented. Her voice held steady through willpower alone. Beneath those cloaks, thirteen pairs of inhuman eyes watched her in rapt attention.

"Lunarex." Xemnas pronounced it carefully before drawing himself up to his full height. "Welcome. I apologize for the rough welcome you have been given. My name is Xemnas. I am the leader of the Nobodies, and of the Organization which you see before you."

_So I gathered,_ she remarked to herself dryly.

"But I am afraid that your arrival comes at a rather… _inconvenient_ time." Xemnas made a motion of dismissal. "Our Organization cannot be allowed to become too large. Thirteen members is all that we have need for. Thus… I am afraid there is no place for you here."

She stared in frank and utter disbelief. "You… you're joking," she concluded. Xemnas' empty eyes stared back at her, and suddenly, she was reminded of a fresh emotion - horror. Then, with rising ire, she cried, "You can't just bring me here and then say I have to leave!"

"I never meant to imply that leaving was an option," Xemnas responded, simply.

"Then…" Her mouth went dry, suddenly. The air in the room had changed – she could sense a hostility from the waiting crowd, a disturbing, sadistic eagerness. But there was nothing for it – the question begged to be asked. "What do you plan to do with me?" Lunarex whispered, tasting the fatality of the answer as it passed her lips.

And then – a horrifying expression – Xemnas _smiled._ It was a bestial, repellent smile, a smile of pure malice, pure lust, pure sin. For a Nobody, for one without a heart, to possess such darkness in them still…

He raised a hand, his fingers clustered together. _Snap._ A Dusk blossomed in front of her, as if the blank whiteness of the room bore fruit.

"Let us see what you have to offer," Xemnas whispered as the creature sashayed and swiveled. "Let us see. Perhaps I shall let you live…" The cloaked figures chuckled, chortled, leaned forward in their seats.

She stared at the being in front of her, filled with a mute pleading. Roxas had said to his servant, "Treat her as you would any of us…" And, true to its nature, the Nobody swiveled on the spot, indecisive. Its blind head turned toward the seated members, as though entreating logic from them.

"Go," said Xemnas, and all questions disappeared from the being's mind. It leaped into the air, and, with a peculiar fishlike motion, lunged, lethal arms swinging.

She ducked away as it landed, leaping from side to side with peculiar, elastic motions. The memory of panic was growing stronger within her. Lunarex lashed out, kicking at the thing, but her foot glided serenely through its body, leaving no mark.

The Dusk leapt forward, ducked beneath her guard. Its head came up suddenly, with brutal force, and she lost her balance. As she flew through the air, the sound of laughter, boisterous and crude, reached her ears.

The memory of anger, livid and rich, and a disgust she didn't have to pretend, propelled her to her feet again. She rushed at the Dusk, but ghosted through it once again. Stopping short and pivoting to aim another strike, she was rewarded with another blow, this time to the head. The fluid being had moved to the ceiling, and it struck out with its long limbs as it promenaded upside-down through the air.

"I've got five hundred munny on the Dusk. Who's with me?" came a brash, arrogant voice from above.

Lunarex climbed to her feet again, her stance unsteady. The world spun around her as her will faded.

_No. _

She clutched at the memories. Hatred, anger, fear, despair, loathing – she had had all that. She'd had it in abundance. And oh, how she remembered it now … she could nearly feel it again, coursing through her like an animating force, like darkness itself…

"You disgust me," she said thickly. Gradually, the laughter from above died away. Or maybe she just couldn't hear it…

The world had started to distort around her, to take on an iridescent hue like an oil spill. The Dusk leapt and struck again. She could no longer feel it.

"All of you," she went on, doggedly, wiping a strand of hair sodden with sweat from her face, lifting her face and yelling to the rafters. "All of you disgust me!"

Silence. There was only silence, and the Dusk, and the Darkness that coursed through her, allowing her to breathe in jerky gasps. The bright light of the room flashed, once, twice. Sensing weakness, the Dusk lunged for the final time, aiming for the kill.

"No!" she screamed, and something within her twisted and went deliciously, horribly wrong.

Her hair seemed to ooze down her back in a toxic river. It spread out, a black, noxious ripple that covered the floor and trickled in rivulets down the walls. The Dusk hesitated with its arm pulled back, ready to strike. She spread her arms wide, and felt something in her hands, something waiting to be pulled from nothing.

"Come to me," she whispered. Amidst snaking, thorny vines, two handles fell into her hand, bearing long, lethal cords that dripped poison. Lunarex smiled.

"You're all disgusting," she repeated. "You lured me here with false promises, and now you send your servant to kill me. All this, and I have done nothing to you. _Nothing._ But if you wish…" She smiled cruelly. "I will show you what I have to offer."

She struck out with her right, her wrist turning elegantly for the follow-through, and a poisoned lash caught the Dusk as it stood there, paralyzed by the toxin. Another blow snaked in from the left, bisecting it through the shoulder, clumsy but effective. It dissipated on the wind, leaving no trace.

Lunarex folded her arms, feeling venom radiate from her, seeping into the walls and floor. She glanced upward to where Xemnas watched, waiting, and allowed him a defiant grin.

"Bring it on."


	4. Chapter 3

"So… now what do we do?"

Robert hoisted himself up onto the top of the crate. Steve leaned his back against the wall of the Accessory Shop; Shana _flumph_ed down next to the lamppost, her face downcast amongst the scatter of her mousy brown bangs. They had spent the past several hours exploring Traverse Town. Every nook and cranny of First District was now no mystery to them, and Third, with its simple square and exquisite fountain, had posed them little trouble. It was only the back alleys and winding venues of Second that had beaten them back. Now, exhausted, they clustered in a miserable group, their adventures rewarded with much fatigue, a few minor injuries from lurking Heartless, and – worst of all – no munny to speak of.

"I thought we decided _that," _Shana sighed. "First thing we did, remember? We're fighting the Heartless, right? And getting munny? And buying things, like food?" She sighed again. "Oh, man. _Food. _I could _definitely_ go for some of that right now, let me tell you."

"You're not the _only_ one," Steve grumbled, remembering with a sudden painful jolt his family's kitchen. Ah, the happy hours he'd spent there…

"And how are we supposed to fight the Heartless?" Robert pointed out, his voice strained. "In case you didn't notice, they're kind of tough around here. And they didn't seem to react very well to you _hugging_ them, Steve."

"Hey, they were _cute!_" Steve said indignantly. "And it was worth a try!"

"Well, they are called _Heartless_ for a reason, y'know," Shana pointed out helpfully.

Steve paused. "Yeah… that occurred to me. Especially after that one Wyvern."

Everyone shuddered and fell silent for a moment.

Robert gave a heartfelt sigh. "I mean," he said, "not only do we not have any food, or any munny…we don't even have a place to sleep tonight."

"At least there're plenty of boxes in the alleyway," Steve remarked. "Maybe they're used to this kind of thing here or something. They just chuck 'em out there for all the homeless bums." He chuckled.

"I call the comfiest one!" Shana piped up, raising her hand.

"Aww." Steve sulked. "You beat me to it. Fine, _I _get _two _boxes. One for me, and one for my invisible friend." He elbowed the air next to him, giving it a large, cheesy grin. "Right, buddy?"

Robert just gaped in disbelief at them for a few seconds. Then he laughed. It was a strange sound, unlike any other laugh he had ever uttered. The sound wavered and distorted as it went on, the echoes rebounding against the hard stone walls of buildings. Steve and Shana looked at Robert with concern.

"Hey, you okay, Robert?" Steve asked, suddenly serious.

Robert stared at him. "Are you guys… Are you guys serious? Do you not get what's going on here?"

Steve and Shana appeared confused. He raised his voice. "This isn't a joke, guys. This isn't… this isn't some fantasy world that we got swept away to! We're really _here_, and this is really _happening. _We're stranded in a strange country, we have no money, we have no food, and we have no way – absolutely no way – of getting back home. None!

"And that means," he went on, "we don't have anything. We don't have beds to go to sleep in at night. We don't have parents to buy things and take care of us. We don't have _homes,_ and when you guys talk about sleeping in boxes … unless something changes, we probably will sleep in them, tonight, a week from now, maybe forever!"

There was a moment of stunned silence following his outburst. Neither of them seemed quite willing to meet his gaze.

Finally, Shana mumbled, "I… we didn't mean anything by it, Robert." The stress and exhaustion of the day, the grief of losing her home, showed clearly on her face. Her eyes were rimmed with red; tendrils of hair hung in her face as though shielding her from harm. She looked as though she were going to burst into tears.

Steve found his voice. "Yeah," he said, a touch of irritation in his voice. "We weren't trying to make you mad by doing it. I mean, we know all that stuff just as well as you do, you know. But… do we honestly have to remember it all the time? Would that make it any easier? On any of us?"

"I just… I think we've wasted all our time," Robert said, his face still sullen. He refused to admit his guilty conscience access to his thoughts. "We spent all of today exploring, and where did it get us? We're fighting an enemy we can't touch with fists. We need _weapons_. But to get those, we need munny. We're stuck, that's all, and there's nothing we can do. There's no way out of this mess."

Again, her face flashed through his thoughts. _Her.__ Lauren. It's all her fault. _His unspoken anger seemed to radiate from the ground itself. _If it weren't for her, we wouldn't be in this mess, we'd be safe in our beds by now, and the world would be just as it used to be… _Unexpectedly, the tears came to his eyes, but he fought them back, refusing to yield. _Just as it never will be, ever again._

Silence. A discontented one. It prowled around them like an irate ghost, prodding them with thoughts, doubts, sorrows. Finally, Shana raised her head. She appeared to be thinking hard.

"That's… not quite true," she said slowly, as though speaking to herself.

"Hm?" Steve was startled out of a reverie. "What's not quite true?"

She stood. "We've got a way out of this whole no-munny situation. It's just…" Shana glanced about furtively, lowering her voice. "It's just not very _legal_, that's all."

Steve caught on. "Ah. I see what you mean." He nodded sagely. "Theft. Well, you can't say we're not trained in it. We did steal stuff for Lauren's experiments all the time."

"But that's just it!" Robert leapt off his box. Ignoring the wary looks of his companions, he charged on. "We can't just steal whatever we need – look at what happened the last time we did that! Do you really want to use a skill that we developed while working for the person who… who brought about Armageddon on Earth? Are we honestly going to do that, and live with ourselves?" He scanned their faces with fervent anxiety.

There was a pause. Steve shrugged. "Don't see why not," he remarked cheerfully.

As a vein began to pulse in Robert's forehead, he held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Calm down, calm down! Seriously, now, think about this. Think about all the stuff you said. We just barely escaped from our world with our lives. And now we're facing homelessness. Maybe we will live in boxes tonight, maybe we'll be homeless forever, like you said. Or maybe the Shadows will get to us before that. Maybe they'll take us before we ever get to fight back. Maybe we will have survived, just to lose our hearts here like everyone else from our world, everyone who would have wanted us to struggle on on their behalf. Did you ever think of that?"

Shana nodded, studying Robert's face. "It doesn't have to be done the way we did it before, Robert," she said softly. "We can just take weapons, if that makes you feel any better. That way, we'll be able to defend ourselves, and we can get started on really fighting tomorrow morning. And once we get enough munny, we can pay everyone back, too."

It was Robert's turn to stare at the ground, retreating into a morose quiet as he pondered the merit of her words. He hated to admit it, but Steve did have a point, and Shana had effectively trounced his reservations on this issue. More than that… she had tried to reach out to him, to make him happy, even after his thoughtless remarks had made her so upset. The shame that overwhelmed his heart made him want to sink, Shadow-like, into the ground and remain there, safe forever.

"It's decided, then," Steve said, taking his silence and the lessening of his anger for consent. "We'll all meet back here whenever we've decided and taken our weapons." He nodded determinedly, striking an epic pose. "Let's mosey!"

"Well, _that_ wasn't cheesy or anything," Shana said, a wry touch of sarcasm in her voice.

They moseyed nonetheless.

* * *

Lunarex slumped, panting. The Sorcerers weaved around her, their sleeves billowing, the strange, blocky constructs they manipulated hovering over their heads in indecision as they watched her. That first Dusk, she saw now, had been only the beginning; wave after wave of attacks had come after, first three Dusks, then seven, then on to Assassins and Creepers, Snipers, Dragoons, Samurai. 

The rush of feeling her powers unlock themselves for the first time gave way quickly to dismay at their ineffectuality. Poison, however well it might do as a supplement to other magic, was not an effective tool for solo melee combat. Her whips kept most enemies at bay until the subtle toxins in the air dissolved them completely, but surrounded as she was, her efforts were near-useless. Her arms ached from swinging and twirling, the bones in her wrists and fingers in such agony she could scarcely hold the handles.

The Sorcerers grew tired of waiting. One of them – back and to the left – readied his strange weapons with an audible _whoosh_, the cubic structure rotating into attack mode.

She lashed out without thinking, spinning on the spot to send a deadly strike toward it. It broke apart – the others in the line closed ranks, and she was scarcely better off. A hum of magic from behind her, and she spun again, twirling her weapon as she closed in. Another dissolution.

_Whrr. _There, her left! She raised her weapon above her head, curling it in an S-shaped strike, lashing her wrist for the follow-through, each motion learned as a painful lesson in this strange arena. But this one was merely feinting; the wall of blocks it summoned entangled her whip, leaving her trapped. Lunarex struggled to pull it free, even as the swishing sounds made her aware of the others, all forming new systems of offense from their tetragonal arsenal. They hovered nearer. Her arms tingled, her fingers going numb at last, their grip weakening as they twitched uncontrollably from strain and nerves.

She wanted to cry.

Instead, Lunarex hissed, bubbling with a rage she could no longer feel. Her weapons broke apart as she drew the poison from the floor into her body, making it into a toxic shield. Attacks from all sides slammed uselessly into it, but were unable to break through the layers of sludge to reach her. Immobile, she observed the situation from her new vantage point, considering her next move.

If she could manipulate the substance she had summoned to this degree, surely…

She let the thought hang there. It would be exhausting, perhaps too exhausting. But there was no other alternative but to try.

The poison of her body exploded outward in a lethal mist, killing one Sorcerer on contact. Swiftly, she contracted its essence until it ran the length of her arms, coating them in toxin that seeped down past her ankles to eat at the floor. She glanced around the arena, seeing her opponents working quickly, blocks spinning into new shapes. This was her chance. If she could no longer hold a weapon, let her body serve as one.

She lunged, bringing twin ropes of poison to bear against one Nobody who had sent his cubes high and wide. Knocking him to the side, she claimed the arena wall and turned, facing the onslaught. Crossing her arms in front of her, raising them high, she studded her new tentacles with lethal spikes and whipped them down with all the force they could muster. Needle-sharp poison spines ripped into her enemies; before they could react, the deadly blows rained down on their heads. They faded away, curling upwards into the air like smoke before disappearing, their cubic constructs dissolving with small popping sounds.

Even with the wall to support her, it took all her will and energy to stand upright. She closed her eyes. Her chest ached.

"Hey, Xemnas." A voice from above her. It was strange… not like the others. She tried to find the source of the voice, but everything was spinning. "Don't you think this chick's about had it? You put her through everything we've got. If she's not too pissed at you right now, she might just make a good addition to the team." A rustle of cloth. Arms folding, maybe? "Just figured I'd throw that out there. You know."

"He's got a point, Xemnas." That was … the fiery voice from before. "I mean, it's not like any of us are immortal. Might be useful to have a little backup, in case times get tight. Nobodies like us don't come around every day." A pause. "That is, unless she's already been killed."

"Xemnas, I heartily urge you to reconsider." That was the arrogant one, she felt sure. "Even apart from the fact that a lot of my own hard-earned munny is at stake here…"

"What're you talking about, Luxord? You bet on the Dusk, and it lost." Demyx's voice, pleading. "Now give me back my munny!"

A chuckle from Luxord. "Ah-ah-ah, little Nocturne-" A despairing yelp followed afterward. It was too bad she felt so weak. She seemed to be missing something pretty amusing. A female voice's laughter, high and oddly cold, echoed around the bare chamber.

"Quiet."

Xemnas' voice, soft as it was, cut through all other conversation. She didn't dare look upward, didn't dare to meet that disquieting orange gaze, that full mouth. At this point, had she looked at him, she might have run out of the room screaming. Assuming she could muster the energy to do so.

"I had considered your words, Axel, before you voiced them. The idea does have merit. As you have said, no member of the Organization is infallible – any of us may fall before reaching our goal. And with half our number leaving us for the new headquarters, which I will leave under the able stewardship of Marluxia-" at that a figure across the room bowed its head in deference – "we may well have more need than ever of reinforcements, should something… unfortunate happen."

There was a pause.

"Lunarex," came the toffee-smooth voice, "step forward, if indeed you are able. There is no need to be afraid. Your trial has ended."

Something in his voice made her doubt that. Nonetheless, she summoned her remaining strength. Pushing off hard from the wall, she was able to lurch her way to the center of the room. She looked up into his face –

**Dusk!**

The repellent creature was headed straight for her, freefalling toward her as though Xemnas had punted it her way. Rage lit her up inside. _That absolute bastard! _She sent a blast of poison its way, pure, unadulterated venom meant for the double-crossing cheat in the highest chair. The Dusk was blown backward to struggle against its weight on the floor; it withered away from the toxin within seconds.

Utterly defeated now, she sunk to the floor, nearly swooning. It took a while to place the sound above her. Applause? Yes. That was what it was. A few members, impressed by her quick action, had guts enough to applaud her.

How touching. How nice. She could die knowing her actions were appreciated by at least a few people. Cool.

"Excellent," came that rumble of a voice she was beginning to hate. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. The silver-haired man was staring at her with an admiration that bordered on lasciviousness.

"You are … quite intelligent. This pleases me." Lunarex had a sudden vision of Xemnas as a cannibal chief looking for his next meal. "It would give me much sadness to know that the one whom I bent the rules for was merely ordinary. I am gratified to see that you are anything but."

_Oh, goodie._

"Sadness?" she asked, her voice sounding brittle and cracked. "Do you presume that beings without hearts are capable of such a feeling?"

"An excellent question." His voice grew warmer. "You miss nothing. Even when your body has been sorely tested, your mind is still sharp. I see that not only do I owe you survival, but, perhaps, a new and more fitting introduction." Xemnas gestured expansively. "I am Xemnas, and these are your colleagues, the members of Organization XIII."

_The peanut gallery.__ Charmed._ Lunarex tried to look as impressed as possible.

"Organization XIII is made up of a group of elite Nobodies, Nobodies who have resisted the urge to join the collective of Dusks, who have refused the death of their physical bodies, who have proven themselves, in short, of strong will and formidable individual power. Together, we – and, should you choose it so, you as well – search to uncover the ultimate secrets behind light and darkness. We study the secrets of the heart, its origins, its destiny. Our final goal, then, is to attain the greatest heart, the heart of all worlds, to which all hearts belong, from which they were born, and to which all shall eventually return…" His voice was hushed with adulation. "Kingdom Hearts, the most powerful force in existence. For only with its power can we ever hope to be complete."

"You wish for completion, then?" She struggled to take this in. Again, that strange ring of familiarity. Some part of her knew all this.

"Surely you have felt it," Xemnas answered. "You were found in Traverse Town, a place teeming with humans and Heartless, a place full of complete beings, full of hearts filled with suffering and with hope." The face of the boy flickered into her mind. "Hearts are our greatest joy and our greatest torment. We long to be reunited with our own hearts, and yet we fear emotions, which have so succeeded in enslaving mankind, bewitching them until they no longer realize their true purpose and destiny." Another expansive, dismissive gesture. "But all of this discussion belongs to another time. Will you lend us your power, your voice, your mind? Our endeavors may provide the purpose and the direction which you, and all nonbeings, so desperately seek. Separately, we live lives without meaning, without hope. But you may share in this glorious destiny, if you so choose."

He blinked at her, owl-like. "What is your choice, Lunarex?"

She hated to admit it of him, she really did. But his words struck a chord in her which resonated beyond her control. No wonder she had felt so strange on meeting Sora, as though she were lacking something, as though something was innately wrong with her; no wonder Roxas' arrival gave her such a strange sense of relief. It was the boy's heart, and Roxas' lack of one, that she had responded to. Hearts as a joy and a torment… She wanted to think on this, to meditate even longer, but the Organization – her colleagues, he had called them, and the term struck her as fearful, considering their actions during the fight – the Organization was watching.

What might they do if she didn't join them? Another fearful thought.

"Very well," she said, her attempt to sound as lazily dignified as Xemnas ruined by her dry, parched voice. "I'll help in whatever way I can."

Xemnas' smile was a languid, leering curve. "Glad to hear it."

For a few moments, the silver-haired man was silent. Then, without warning, a question emerged. "Xigbar?"

The figure next to him glanced over. "Yeah, Xem?"

_That voice… he's the one who told Xemnas to call off the attack._

"Your mission, which continues even now, is to recruit new members, correct?"

"Uh… yep, something like that."

"Interesting." Xemnas reclined in his chair. "I seem to have heard strange rumors, Xigbar, about your lack of devotion to this duty. Some even say you had other members cover for you, while you took time out to …_relax."_ He pronounced the word as though he had never heard it before. "Does this sound familiar to you?" He examined the nails on one gloved hand. "I should hate to have been swayed by inaccurate rumors, after all, _especially_ rumors concerning one of the Organization's senior members…"

"Ah." Xigbar remained silent for a moment, as though marshaling his thoughts. Xemnas plunged on in his wake.

"And your duty in the Land of Dragons? How goes that? I have not yet heard reports from you on your progress."

"Uh, yeah, about that…" Xigbar rubbed the back of his head. "Honestly, Xem, there's really nothing _to _report. Everything's just kinda goin' along, as usual."

"That sounds boring." Xemnas sounded bored.

"It is, man, you have no idea."

Xemnas examined the nails on his other hand. "Perhaps I should give you a little something more to do… to liven things up a bit, hm?" He dropped the hand. "After all, Roxas sets an interesting precedent. Perhaps our new recruits will adjust even more quickly if they are assisted by able mentors – and you are certainly well-qualified. And given your willingness to take her part earlier, I have no doubt Lunarex will _thrive _under your … nurturing influence."

"Hey, I-" Xigbar held up his hands helplessly, glancing to the other members for support, none of whom would quite meet his gaze. He slumped back in his chair. "I mean… well… hey, dude, it's your call. You're the boss of me. I'm good with whatever you pick."

Xemnas bowed with mocking gratitude. "Thank you for your confidence." He looked around. "If that is all that remains to be seen to today, this meeting is dismissed. Whichever of you wishes to make their introductions to our newest – well, shall we say, our newest understudy? – may approach her freely as you will. Good luck in your duties."

Darkness billowed up around Xemnas, and he was gone. One by one, the members evaporated after him. Lunarex watched them anxiously, realizing that few in the group would bother to make the necessary introductions, that she was alone even among her own kind. It was a sobering realization.

Then a portal opened next to her, and she jumped.

"How's it goin'?" A hood was thrown back. Bright red hair greeted her eyes. For a moment she was dazzled by an impression of jade-green eyes marked by strange tattoos, of perfect teeth bared in a savage-looking grin. "Roxas' first recruit, huh? You put up a good fight back there." He smiled again, then rubbed the back of his neck embarrassedly. "Sorry for the stereotypical welcome. Xemnas likes to have his dramatic moments… as if you couldn't tell already."

Lunarex just stared. She _knew _this man. And she _knew_ she knew him. But where? How?

Another grin for her obvious blank expression. "Hey, I almost forgot. My favorite part." He hitched a finger at his chest. "The name's Axel. A-X-E-L. Got it memorized?" He tapped his head lightly.

She continued to stare. "It's… only four letters," she managed to observe. "That's pretty cheesy, you know that?"

Axel stared at her, uncertain as to which way to take her words. Eventually, though, he laughed.

"You know," he decided finally, "you're not bad. Who knows, maybe you'll be a breath of fresh air around this boring old place. You ever have any questions old Xiggy can't answer for ya, just come to me, all right?" He grinned his cocksure grin, and, almost against her will, Lunarex returned it.

Another spot of darkness popped up. Roxas appeared from the midst of the chaos.

"Hey," he said, walking over to her, his frank blue eyes resting on her injuries. "Sorry about… all that. They did the same thing to me, too, only it was on the way here, when I had no idea what was going on or where I was headed. You're pretty lucky to have lived through all that."

"Luck is a matter of opinion," Lunarex sighed, wincing. "But… thanks. It's nice to hear someone apologizing for a change."

Roxas nodded, then turned to Axel. "So … we're supposed to be partners or something?" he asked.

Axel grinned. "You got that right. Stick with me, I'll tell ya whatever you need to know." He glanced at Lunarex. "Like I said, that goes for you too. Plenty of Axel to go around."

"Dudes. Scatter." The gruff voice came from directly behind her. She nearly jumped out of her skin. There had been no sound of a portal opening, no motion. _What the? _"Clear off, man, this one's mine. No hoggin' my new student, ya hear?"

She turned, and her jaw dropped.

Lunarex was face to face with the scariest… well, _face_ she had ever seen. A gigantic scar ran the length of his cheekbone, spanning from the jaw to the corner of his left eye, which was a leering yellow. The thin eyebrow above it was quirked in an unusual fashion. The other eye was covered by an eyepatch that created a perpetual scowl. His lips were broad, parting to bare a rugged grin. The black of his hair had faded in streaks to a silvery-white. Altogether, he made a menacing picture.

He also happened to be hanging upside-down.


	5. Chapter 4

It was Robert who returned to the street corner first, slamming himself back-first against the wall of the Accessory Shop, leaning down, breathing hard from running. Sweat or blood was running down the staff which he still clutched tightly in his right hand, tucked behind him in case someone spotted it. That had been close - too close.

A moment later, Steve strolled around the corner, looking for all the world like an ordinary pedestrian, except that he was obviously all too pleased with himself. Robert scowled in jealousy.

The two of them stood there for a minute or more, silent, waiting for Shana's arrival. The minute passed. Obviously, the final member of their trio would be a little late.

"Soooo," Steve said finally, lumbering to face him, a supremely smug expression crossing his face. "What'd you get, Robert?"

Robert sighed and held out the staff. "Just this… but I almost paid for it with my life." He lowered his hand and his voice. "I broke into this magical artifact shop in Second District, and it all went fine at first, but then I saw that staff. It was in a glass case, and, well…" He looked down at it wistfully. "I know I shouldn't have touched it, but I just wanted to take a peek at it, you know, see why it was locked away. And then these _alarms_ started… I had to break the glass to get it out, and then I cut my hand on the window when I broke that trying to escape… the blood was everywhere." He shook his head. "If they can use it to track people, they'll be on us in no… time…"

Robert had lifted his hand to examine the cut. Now he stopped, confused. He had seen the blood, he knew he had - but the only thing that remained of the gash in his hand was a wide scar across his palm. He blinked fiercely, convinced his eyes were playing tricks on him, and then looked at Steve.

"Okay, what's going on?" he asked, a hint of panic coloring his voice.

"What're you talking about?"

"The cut! It's gone! Unless… could I have imagined it? But… no, it hurt and everything!"

Robert could have cried. On top of all that had happened today, now he was seeing things, too. Steve picked up his hand and examined it, poking the scar with wide-eyed fascination.

"I don't see how I could have imagined it… but I had to've, and even if I didn't, we've got to get out of here, people are probably following the trail right now, maybe Shana can meet us somewhere…"

"Robert, hold on." Steve dropped his hand and stared off into the distance, eyes narrowed in thought. He lifted a finger. "All right. Let's consider this logically. We've just gotten to this world, to Traverse Town, from our own world, right?"

"Right," Robert said uncertainly, not sure what he was getting at.

"So," Steve said, his face twisting in concentration, "we can assume that we're now in the world that was described by Kingdom Hearts. Everything else we've seen so far has corresponded to the game, right down to geography and everything. We don't have a timeframe for when we got here, at what point we're at in history. But that's besides the point." He waved his hand impatiently, glancing at Robert. "My point is, we're now _here_, in a world where Keyblades are more than just fiction. We're in a world that has… _magic. _Maybe… it's strange, but just maybe, maybe we're now starting to embody this world's logic and laws. Maybe it wasn't that you were seeing things. Maybe you can _heal_ things, you know, with magic, and you just didn't know it until you got here."

"Can that happen?" Robert asked. "I mean… if we had magic, wouldn't we have had it back on Earth, too?"

"Maybe not," Steve suggested. "Maybe there was something on Earth that got in the way. Maybe there's something _here_ that _makes_ magic possible, even if you're not born here. Anyway, if that really _is_ the case, the possibilities are endless!" He rubbed his hands together with delight, bouncing up and down on his heels. "Quick, let's test it! I'll saw your arm off with a blunt pair of scissors, and -"

"No," Robert said firmly, and when Steve still crowded closer, a manic, comical glint in his eye, he folded his arms sternly, bringing the staff between them. "_No, _Steve. Unless you wanna see what this staff can do in a world full of magic, you'd better step back."

Steve sighed in a put-upon way. To Robert's great relief, he abandoned his offensive, instead electing to see if he could uproot a nearby lamppost by grabbing it and shoving it rhythmically back and forth.

"So what'd you wind up getting?" Robert asked, concerned for the welfare of the lamp-post.

Steve turned, his eyes aglow. "Oh, wait 'til you see this," he said happily, "You're not gonna _believe_ it…"

At that moment, a tinkle like that of glass shattering erupted in the air above them. The two boys craned their heads toward the sound, up into the sky. They froze in that position as one, mouths agape.

Down from the rooftops drifted the latecomer, Shana, floating in midair. All around her were shards of glass, suspended in the air behind her like mammoth, transparent wings.

She appeared at first to be descending in a dreamlike fashion, slowly and gracefully; after a moment, Robert and Steve became less aware of the strangeness of the situation and the inherent coolness of a girl flying through the air, and more aware of the fact that Shana's expression was one of unmistakable panic. She windmilled her arms uncertainly for a few seconds, then realized that this had no effect on her descent and stopped. Next, she tried flipping upside-down. Though she was at least 20 feet above them, they still heard her voice exclaiming.

"Whoa! AWESOME! I feel like Xigbar!"

"Shana…?" Robert whispered, then, louder, "SHANA! Get down from there!"

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" she yelled back, turning upright again. "Don't RUSH me!"

Like a punctured balloon, Shana and her glass wings slowly descended, in fits and starts, dropping a yard, then buoying themselves up again. Finally, five feet from the ground, she lost her concentration entirely and dropped the remainder of the way to the floor, crumpling on the pavestones. Glass pinged to a halt around her with a clatter like a drawer of silverware being violently flung against a porcelain tub. Steve and Robert started forward in alarm.

"Whew!" Shana exclaimed, obviously unhurt, and then leapt to her feet in a heroic posture. "I have returned! Alive! And man, let me tell you guys, I have _no idea_ how Xigbar does it. All the blood went straight to my head. It _sucked_."

Robert and Steve glanced uncertainly at each other, then back at her, and burst out laughing, partly from relief. Shana joined in, giddily, and the three walked the short way back to the corner and sat down, recovering from their adventures.

"So I guess you've gotten new abilities, too?" Robert asked Shana once his giggles had stopped.

Shana nodded. "Apparently. Seems like I can make stuff move when I want it to." She glanced down. "_Including_ me. Which, I am not trying that again anytime soon."

"Please don't," Steve agreed. "I think you took five years off my life, and with this belly I don't expect to live long past fifty as it is." Ignoring the uncomfortable silence that inevitably surrounded one of his physiological jokes, he added, "So what'd you wind up getting?"

Shana reached behind her and brought forth a small backpack shaped like a panda. "I got a panda pack!" she said triumphantly.

Steve and Robert looked at each other. "Shana…" Robert said, in what he hoped was a gentle tone of voice, "I think you might have missed the point of this whole thing entirely…"

"Aw, no! You mean the weapons?" Shana unzipped the panda and began pulling out objects. Steve and Robert, clustered around the panda pack, stared at its contents. Sharp pointy objects poked out of every interior pocket the fluffy faux creature possessed. It was a wonder the backpack hadn't been lacerated into oblivion by now.

"I got every dagger in the place," Shana said proudly, displaying her collection. "And throwing knives, and ninja stars, and…"

"Great," Steve said, half sincerely and half in the cautious tone reserved for Shana and pointy objects. "That's, uh, great, Shana. We're all _really_ happy for you." He walked over to the lamppost nonchalantly, then cowered behind it, laughing nervously. "Please don't hurt me."

She giggled. "I won't," Shana promised, leveling a dagger at him in what was meant to be a reassuring way. "Provided that I hear _no_ Axel-bashing, _or_ Roxas-bashing, _or_ Akuroku bashing…"

"Oh, come _on, _that last thing's impossible _not _to bash!" Steve said indignantly from his defensive post. "You _really_ expect me to-"

"_So_, Steve," Robert interjected loudly, causing the other two to cut off what promised to be a very heated argument. "What'd you wind up with? Weren't you just going to show us?"

Steve stopped, thrown off his train of thought, and then remembered. "Oh yeah!" He pulled at the satchel around his shoulder, placing it reverently on the pavestones as Shana and Robert gathered around him to see. "Check this out. I found a weapon to top both of yours… my _dream _weapon, at long last…"

He pulled back the flap on the top of the bag. Shana and Robert blinked. No weapon was forthcoming. However, glowing metallic shards and crystals of every conceivable shape and color radiated a warm, pulsing light from within the bag. Shana's eyes glossed over.

"Oooh…"

Steve took the precious metals out, fistful by fistful, identifying each one as he scattered them across the pavement. "Mythril Shard, Thunder Shard, Fire Shard… that's Orichalcum, it's really rare, he only had three in stock… Fire Gem… Mythril…"

"You robbed the Synthesis Shop?" Robert asked him incredulously.

Steve shook his head. "I got most of these from another source…" He rummaged in the front pocket of the bag, and began pulling out blocks of a strange colored substance. Shana picked two up and stuck them together. Then she yanked. They came apart, but not easily.

"What're these?" she asked in fascination, sticking more onto her creation.

"Gummi blocks," Steve said.

Now Robert understood. "You stole from Cid's private storeroom…?" he asked, his eyes wide in awe or horror.

Steve gave a gleeful grin. "And the item shop, too. I needed a bag to get everything out of there." He waggled the price tag back and forth on the giant tote bag. "But none of that's even what I wanted you guys to see. _This _is." He stuck a hand deep into a side pocket, pulling out a large number of paper folding squares, which he unrolled to reveal…

"But… they're diagrams," Robert said. His voice was infused with something like disgust.

"Yeah," Shana said, obviously disappointed at the lack of shiny objects. "How do you even read them? These are… really complicated." She examined the nearest one, which was covered in arrows and cramped script. "'At STP, titrate 2 mol Mystery Goo. Mix with 5 mol pwdr Mythril in solution at 310K…'" She glanced up. "These don't even make any sense!"

"Yeah, they do!" Steve responded defensively, taking the diagram. "Anyway, that's just a recipe. That'll provide the raw materials, and then I just have to assemble them and weld them together with the tools I stole according to _these_ diagrams…" He pulled out a stack of graph paper littered with tiny, cramped writing and technical drawings. "And then I can make

Steve pulled out a square of paper. It was a drawing of a pair of uniquely-fashioned gauntlets, studded with strange pits and attached to some sort of machine.

"And … what is that?" Robert asked uncertainly.

Steve looked at him as though he doubted Robert's sanity. "Synthesis gauntlets. They'll allow me to combine different elemental and metallic compounds in battle to create different effects, like making shrapnel bombs, or shooting fireballs. The back-mounted inventory device allows me to draw down different elemental compounds to the storing chambers in the gauntlets depending on certain motion triggers in the fingers and wrists. Jeez, can't you guys _read_?" He looked up at the heavens, then sighed. "The only drawback to all this is, I didn't get any magic like you two did." He shook his head. "Man, this really makes Traverse Town _suck_ for me…"

Shana looked at him uncertainly. "I'm… not so sure of that, Steve," she said. "I dunno about you, but I can't understand a word that's written on those drawings. And the graphs for it all are even worse."

"Yeah, are you sure you'll be able to make these?" Robert asked, holding up a diagram which showed a single finger of the gauntlets, depicting each joint from a multitude of angles. "They look like they'd take a genius to make. It's not just metalwork, it's got computer programming and stuff with it, too, and you'll have to custom-fit these to your arms. Have you ever even _done_ any welding before?"

Steve hesitated. "No. But," he added, in a helpless, pensive kind of way, "I feel like I know what I've got to do. I know exactly how I can make all this work, and how to put it together, and what tools to use, and everything." He began to look slowly taken aback by the words coming from his mouth. "Are you saying… does that mean… I've got magic, too?"

"Maybe," Robert said, shrugging. "All I know is, I couldn't even think of doing anything like that."

Steve sat stunned for a little while, staring at the pieces of paper littering the sidewalk. The breeze blew them a little, moving the sheets across one another like playful waves. Finally, Steve reached forward and began stuffing them back in his pack, one by one. Shana picked up a Gale and poked at it with a finger, then took her hands away to leave it hanging in the air. Robert stared at his hand, his thumb rubbing the scar on his palm.

"We're all changing," he said suddenly, and Steve and Shana jumped. "It's not even been a full day since we've been here, and already we're different than the kids who came here this morning."

"_Is _it morning? How do people tell, if it's dark here all the time?" Shana muttered to herself.

"Shana, _focus_," Robert said patiently. The girl chuckled.

"Sorry. Just thinking out loud." Shana tilted her head back, examining the stars from which they had so recently fallen.

"Is it really _so_ bad, though?" Steve asked, staring after her. "The fact that we're changing. We're in a different world. Things are different here than they were at home. We're bound to change in ways we can't even anticipate. Nothing can stop that from happening."

"Still," Robert said, and left it hanging. He too gazed up at the heavens. Was Earth still up there somewhere? If this really was the world of Kingdom Hearts, would it all be restored to its former state one day, after the worlds returned to normal? Or was it already too late?

"Our world's gone," Shana said. Her voice trembled on the words, but her next ones were firm. "So we've gotta keep going. And stick together, like Steve said." She stood up, dusting her hands. "But still, I think we should change our names."

"Names, too?" Steve asked, his voice odd and distant. "Why can't we keep those?"

"Yeah, what if someone from our world comes along looking for us?" Robert said.

Shana shook her head. "I just have a feeling, but I don't think anyone will." She sat back down on the pavement. "We're on our own from now on. And we're not going to do stupid things like we did back then. We're not going to just let bad things happen, like we did back home."

She clenched her fists. "From now on, if something happens, it's up to us to fix it. If Darkness is out there, we've got to fight it. We've seen what it does. We can't let it all happen again. If there's something we can do, we'll fight."

Robert nodded, slowly. "I see your point," he said at last, tearing his eyes away from the stars. "We're different people now, with different goals. But what should we be called?"

"We already picked three perfectly good names," Steve reminded him. "You're Phaux, remember?"

"And I'm Auxra," Shana said, happily.

"And Steve is Stevex," Steve said, laughing at his own joke yet again. "With a silent X, because it's foreign."

Remembering the names made them all remember, in a sudden flash, the last time they had been spoken. The abandoned warehouse. A little town that they might never see again. Home, or what had once been home, before its desecration. Earth, before its despair. They could still remember it all, so vividly, so strongly that they could still remember the placement of every rock and tree and house on the way to the warehouse, every item on their kitchen sinks, every step of their own homes. Surely it couldn't all be gone. It was there just hours ago…

And, before homesickness could take its toll, Robert remembered Lauren. It made his stomach clench. He could almost see her, her calm, impassive gaze with its steely coldness, he could almost hear her voice. A wave of anger rolled over him, but caught up inside of it was sadness. _She was our friend, too_, he realized, the remembrance coming back to him afresh.

"What if we run into her?" he asked, and the others knew what he meant.

Steve shook his head. "It depends. She'll probably have changed, too. We'll just have to see if…" He trailed off for a moment. "If she remembers what she's done. If she regrets it at all. I don't want to have to fight her."

"Me neither," Shana murmured.

"Me neither," Robert agreed, feeling guilty about his anger earlier. "I still can't forgive her, but I couldn't… I couldn't punish anyone for that. It's not my place, and anyway…"

Shana nodded. "I know. She was our friend, too."

They spent a moment in silence, remembering. Then Steve clumsily got to his feet.

"Come on, people. I'm tired, and my butt hurts from all this sitting." As the others got to their feet, a mischievous grin split his face. "And I've got _two_ comfy boxes with my name on it!"

"Hey," Shana gasped as he barreled past her, "_I _called the comfy box!"

She darted after him, nimble form streaking down the alleyway at top speed. Robert, giggling, hastened to catch up.


	6. Chapter 5

Lunarex gaped at the yellow-eyed man hanging from the ceiling for some moments. Vague recollections of fear played about her battle-scarred brain. At last, unable to decide what else to do, the girl swept into an elegant bow, sinking to one knee and lowering her gaze to the floor. Keeping her head bowed, she was not only able to appear extremely courteous to her new teacher; she also could disguise her unseemly shock at his rough appearance.

"Sir," she began softly, her voice even and sincere. "Let me be the first to say, I'm so sorry for burdening you with teaching me. I promise you, I'll do my hardest not to intrude or be a bother in any way. I hope-"

She glanced up and stopped. The man had reversed his center of gravity, and now stood upright before her, his eyebrows raised in surprise and uneasiness. He held up his hands in a placating gesture.

"Um… dude… chill out. Seriously. It's no biggie," he said, adjusting his hair tie.

Lunarex blinked, taken aback. "Are… are you sure?"

He jerked his head in the affirmative. "I'm not blamin' you for what Xemnas ordered. What I said was true – I'm good with whatever he decides. If he says you're my student, I'm not gonna leave ya hangin'. I'm gonna teach ya everything I know." Recovering somewhat, he held out his hand, shooting her a rough but kind grin. "And you lucked out, 'cuz I prob'ly know more about this thing than Xemnas even does. Name's Xigbar." He hitched a thumb at his chest proudly. "And you are?"

Lunarex stared for a moment. The man's voice was gruff, droll, full of good humor, so out-of-sync with his rough appearance that it was almost laughable. As he spoke, his hands never stopped moving, ceaselessly shaping the air between them, jolting to a sudden dramatic stop, waving and weaving about in myriad indistinct patterns. She looked up into his face again, and something deep inside her clicked into place, like a key turning in a lock. She _liked _this guy. She liked him a lot. He had guts, he was original, he stood out from a crowd, and he didn't take himself seriously, like the rest of these hopped-up jerks.

The smile that she directed at him was, therefore, full and beaming. "Lunarex," she said. "It's good to meet you, Xigbar."

Behind her, Axel whistled. "Wow. Cleans up nice when she's not sweaty and pissed, eh, Roxas?"

"_Lunarex_?" Xigbar chortled. "Jeesh, what a name. You sound like Saix's little sister or somethin'. And it's way too long. Can't I call ya Lunie or somethin'?"

Lunarex heard Roxas giggle behind her, and shot a scowl at the two of them. "Don't you two have business to take care of?" she asked crossly.

"Yeah, yeah, sure thing," Axel said. He glanced down at his young charge. "C'mon, Roxas. We'll leave these two to their introductions. And I've got some ice cream with our names on it."

"Ice cream!?" Roxas gasped. Axel burst out laughing at the enthusiasm on his face, and Roxas, realizing his foolishness, grinned sheepishly. Composing himself, he smiled up at the redhead and tried again. "That sounds great to me." Axel grinned, shooting a mock salute to Lunarex and Xigbar. Then the two disappeared in a shroud of black.

Lunarex stared enviously. "I've gotta learn to do that." She turned back to Xigbar and sighed, a crooked smile crossing her face. "And, yeah, call me whatever you like. Just don't let those guys hear it, eh?"

Xigbar chuckled. "Sure thing, kid. And don't you worry." His single eye sparkled with mischief. "I'll work your ass off. You'll be makin' portals with the best of 'em in no time." He headed off toward the door, motioning for her to follow. "And you'll do a lot more besides that, too. If you're gonna be my student, I'm gonna make sure you turn out to be the best we've got. Sound good?" He shot an appraising sideways look at her.

Lunarex smirked, hastening to catch up. "Sounds good. Bring it on."

* * *

Xigbar made good on his promise: during the entire course of the next month, Lunarex worked harder than she had ever worked before, in this life or the previous one. Portal theory took up the first week – it was sorely needed, for, as Lunarex would soon learn, Darkness was a force that was hard to understand and even harder to control. Combat practice was held every other day, regardless of all other eventualities. The first week of the grueling routine, Lunarex was forced to strap her whips to her arms to spare her wrists and hands the pain of holding them. 

"I think you're doin' pretty well," Xigbar told her after their third session. They had limped back to the castle through a hastily-summoned portal, and were now dripping rainwater onto the floor; Lunarex halfheartedly kicked at a Shadow that had trailed them through the gateway.

"I think _you're_ more sadistic than I gave you credit for," she sighed.

Xigbar only grinned and threw his wet leather coat at her before retreating deeper into the chilly building. Grumbling goodnaturedly, she set off after him.

Her studies progressed quickly under her tutor's watchful, patient eye. Although her powers did not lend themselves well to solo melee fighting, she was soon able to train in the Dark City without Xigbar at her side for backup. As Xigbar's missions in The Land of Dragons grew increasingly more involved, she found herself practicing her hunting skills with Axel and Roxas more and more. The two had truly become inseparable since the day of her ill-informed arrival, and if they weren't wasting their time exploring nearby Twilight Town, they would often stop by and attempt to enlist her in whatever misguided prank they had dreamed up for the day.

Often, she turned them down on their offers of Twilight Town's specialty ice-cream, claiming that she was busy with her studies, and that she didn't like sea-salt anyway. In fact, the real truth was that it bothered her to see them so familiar with each other. Lunarex had tagged along on one of their little adventures, watched them play in the puddles and scare pigeons, and found the whole thing utterly boring and trivial and somehow disturbing as well. What a mockery it was. She couldn't understand it, didn't want to understand it; the whole thing was only a distraction, anyway, from the true business of being a Nobody, so she just put it from her mind in the same way she would one of Demyx's nervous antics.

"Is it normal," she thought to ask one day, when she and Xigbar were trudging their way back to the castle after a good bout, "Is it normal to not have memories, after one loses one's heart? Or to feel that they're there, but in a confused order?"

Xigbar shrugged. "Of course. What'd you expect?" He hefted a pistol onto his shoulder, waving the other dismissively about in a way that made her somewhat nervous. "S'like what they're studying in Castle Oblivion… the heart is the key to memory. For every memory, there's a feeling that goes with it, right? So without those feelings to guide you, of course your mind'll get confused. It can't help it. Just gotta give it time, is all."

"How long does it usually take to clear up?"

"Hm…" He frowned. "For the mind to reassimilate all that info… 'Bout a month, I'd say, give or take, dependin'." He grinned down at her suddenly, and Lunarex got the strong feeling that, somehow, his single yellow eye was seeing through her, assessing her coldly and logically with all the objective precision of a laser. "Why'd you ask? Somethin' important comin' back to you?"

She smiled coolly, shook her head. "No. Not really." The girl thought for a moment, pausing her steps before continuing on at Xigbar's side. "The past can be useful, true. And if there's something in my past that would be of benefit to our Organization, I would be happy to be the one to recall it. But still, nothing's more important to me than right here and now. Than learning all that I can, and putting it into practice to achieve our goal."

Xigbar chuckled. "Hey, kid, good answer. Xemnas himself'd be happy to hear that. I see I've trained you well." He preened.

Lunarex smiled in reply. The two walked into the Castle that Never Was in companionable silence.

One month later, upon the death of Vexen, Lunarex ascended to the ranks of the Organization.

* * *

As time went on, Shana, Steve and Robert slowly adopted a routine. Steve worked tirelessly by day as an intern at the Synthesis Shop, where the Moogles delighted in teaching the strange, curious outsider the tricks of their own unique trade, as well as conspiring against their chief business rival, Cid's Accessories. His position put him in a unique place to meet all sorts of interesting people and hear all sorts of rumors. When Kingdom Hearts was finally sealed, and the worlds returned to their former state, Shana, Robert, and Steve were there, watching from the rooftops, wondering aloud if their own world was being restored as well. When Sora himself stopped into the Synthesis Shop, proudly carrying the final few Mystery Goo he needed to forge his final, most powerful Keychain, Steve dropped the Thunder Stones he had been shelving and dove over boxes and tables to shake his hand energetically, nearly throwing the hero's back out. Most of all, though, whenever word reached them of a new treasure trove somewhere in town, or a band of powerful Heartless roaming in Second District, Steve would hang up his apron for the day and duck out to the back alley, their new home and headquarters. In low tones, they would lay out the plan of attack. The following night, they would strike in quick, coordinated movements, the nimble Shana leading, and Robert watchfully bringing up the rear. 

They grew to have something of a reputation in town. Robert was growing popular with the aged and infirm; it was said that spending even a few moments in his presence would invigorate people, making old injuries fade and new complaints lessen to nothing. Shana took up arts and crafts, often painting elaborate murals high on the city walls that people walking below would marvel at – for who would paint a building from the top downward? Steve's synthesis skill led him to engineer a new invention, which used a unique space-time principle to ensure that people could store an infinite amount of items in a tiny satchel. And then, of course, there were the rumors of thieves, thieves who struck the Accessory Shop at night, who would steal everything from magical artifacts to chocobo plush toys, disappear without a trace, and then return after a few days to reimburse the shop owners with strange offerings like bowls of milk. (Steve claimed it would keep everyone off their track. It worked.)

Not everything would come easily to them, of course. Inevitably, the hardship that had cost them their home followed Robert, Shana and Steve, dogging their footsteps for many months afterward. They still dwelled in the same alleyway, not so much because they could afford no other place, but because they were accustomed by then to sleeping under the stars, under the light of distant worlds which might not be so far away. None of them ever spoke of Lauren again – it was too contentious a subject to be brought up, and fights over it had often ended badly, with Robert or Shana in tears and Steve furious. On occasion, Robert would awaken at night to hear the stifled sobs of Shana or Steve, and feel the old wave of homesickness wash over him as well. Sometimes he would wriggle over and comfort the crier, and all of them would awake and share stories of home, holding each other close as though to stave off the darkness that threatened to eclipse them. On other nights, he simply listened to the soft sounds decreasing and dying away in the tranquil night air, his own body mercilessly sleepless, his own heart full of anxiety and regret. And then there were the nightmares – dark fingers clutching, yellow eyes gleaming, a book that glinted in candlelight, a rift in the sky. They had all had them at some point, and they seemed to go on for weeks at a time. Just when everything seemed fine, one of them would wake up screaming, and it would fall to the others to offer comfort. No grownups here to do it, no parents. _It's all right. It's all right._

So passed the days – and if they were days of strife and suffering, they were also days of triumph, as well. The trio grew more adept in battle, until even Steve's rotund body began to take on an almost streamlined look. Although starting from nothing, between theft and combat wages they quickly acquired more munny than they knew how to spend. And slowly, slowly, things began to settle down with each of them. They had found their places in the world, together, and now they were free to explore and make the most of this world as compensation for the one they had lost. A balance had been struck, and it was a good balance, a fine balance, a good way to work and to live.

In less than an hour, with one catastrophic meeting, everything would again change, but in the meantime, they were happy. For the moment - in those blissful, transitory days - that was all that mattered.

* * *

With her ascension, Lunarex was guaranteed much more than a title – she had gained a number, a Proof of Existence, a true place within the framework of the Organization which she was glad to devote all her time to. The results were noticeable immediately. Now, not only Xigbar and Axel's gang noticed her; she could debate theories with Zexion, Luxord offered to play cards with her, and once, while giving Xaldin a wide berth in the hallway, she could almost swear he nodded to her in a manner that was almost cordial. Encouraged even more, she threw herself into research in Vexen's place, completing a postulate on the physical and metaphysical nature of the heart that had half the castle up in arms against her, and several other members vaguely interested. 

But hide as she might behind her research, Xemnas found her anyway. One morning – morning by her definition, since time was a fluid concept in the World that Never Was – she was summoned to his quarters for a private audience.

The soles of her feet made no noise against the blank white floor – a mark of her training in stealth, something Xigbar prized highly. She raised one black-gloved hand and knocked a muted rhythm on the pallid door that towered over her head. It split along the middle, light gleaming along the edges with such fierceness that it made her eyes water. Next came darkness, long languid tendrils spilling out onto the floor, lapping at her boots and grabbing at her jacket. The door slid back to reveal a gateway, the mottled purple and black of the otherworldly portal extending outward from the wall, as though to suck her in.

Lunarex rolled her eyes. _Friggin__' Superior.__ Even his room's unnecessarily dramatic as hell. _

She walked in, inspecting her surroundings with a casual, professional eye. The Superior's room managed to at once be opulent and completely bare. It was an immense room, the floor, walls and ceiling all the same bare shade of white as the rest of the castle, creating the illusion of even greater empty space. The pillared walls were emblazoned with the usual symbol, set into regular indentations in the wall.

A table and chairs was the only thing in the anteroom that broke up the monotony of the room. Notes littered the long table, some pages trailing the floor. Against the blinding pallor of the backdrop, Xemnas stood out sharply, his chocolate skin and dark robes a strange visual interruption. He was seated at one of the long table's chairs, pouring over a chart with eyes that gleamed with feigned excitement, and real obsession.

He motioned for her to sit opposite him. Lunarex felt a familiar prickle on her skin as she complied, the peculiar sensation that being in Xemnas' presence awakened. Her eyes instinctively followed his every move, every nerve in her on edge, waiting in breathless expectation of what would happen next.

She hated the guy, she really did. He had no right to be so compelling, and she reckoned that magic had something to do with his cheap way of catching her attention. _With guys like that, it's _always_ magic. Freaking magic._

"Lunarex," Xemnas pronounced once she had settled in. The back of the chair dug into her spine unpleasantly. Xemnas steepled his fingers, his tangerine eyes fixed on hers. "You've done well for yourself thus far. The other members have reported as to your productivity. And Xigbar tells me you're planning another essay soon on the inevitability of Darkness. I am impressed."

She inclined her head. "Thank you, Superior," she intoned absently, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

Her mind was skipping back to a conversation she'd had with Xigbar a few days after her arrival. They had been wrangling over portals at the time, but her heart hadn't really been in it. _(Haven't got one, she could hear Axel say. When had he said that? It didn't matter. The man was always that way. Always philosophical, always cynical, always profoundly dissatisfied. He bored her.)_

"Xig," she had said, dispelling the twisting strands of darkness that refused to coalesce. "I've been here for almost a week now, and there's something I've gotta ask. I really don't understand it at all."

Her teacher laid down his scissors and paper cutouts, with which he had been trying and failing to look busy and important. "Go on, then. I'm listenin'."

Lunarex shook her head. "Is Xemnas… no, that's not it. It's just… What are the _goals_ of this Organization?" she blurted out. "I get that we're obtaining Kingdom Hearts and all that, but Xemnas seems to be advocating two different positions. He told me at my induction that without hearts, we were incomplete. Kingdom Hearts has the power to complete us – that I understand. But Xemnas also seems to have some bias against… well, against hearts. Against completion." She ran a hand through her hair, her gaze fixed on a point on the floor. "He seemed to think that humanity had been enslaved by their emotions, seduced away from the real truth of everything. That we Nobodies are superior, in some way, because we've seen through the charade of emotions and we know what's really important." She looked up into Xigbar's scarred face. The man's expression was inscrutable. "The two messages don't make sense," she maintained, and her voice sounded thin and weak to her, a juvenile protest. "We want Kingdom Hearts. But what do we plan to do once we attain it?"

Xigbar just continued to stare down at her. For the first time in her un-life, she felt cowed by him, unsure if the gaze he was shooting her was sad, or protective, or angry, or none of the three. For the first time, she remembered that Xigbar, for all his laid-back honesty, for all the kindness he had showed her, was the second-ranked member of this Organization; for the first time, she realized, too, that he was a heartless being, like herself. That he felt nothing, that he would feel nothing, even if she were to fade away before him. Despite their friendship, both of them were, at the core of it all, inevitably cold. Despite all the companionship that had passed between them, they were both still empty, still remote, two unfeeling forces that had worked together up until this moment, but could turn on each other at any instant.

"Kid," he said finally, breaking the silence at last with his gruff voice. "I've been in this Organization for I dunno how long. And I've really got no answers for ya. Except, if you wanna survive the rest of this life the way you are –" His gaze held steady as hers trembled and broke. Staring at the floor, she felt a hand descend on her shoulder. "Don't you _ever_ ask anyone but me that question. Ya got that?"

Lunarex looked up into Xigbar's face. She felt relief cascade into her, seeing the familiar face above her, seeing the grin that promised patience and good humor and fun breaking across his face. But now that she had seen it in him, she couldn't shake it. She couldn't trust him, she couldn't place faith in his openness, because who knew what he might actually think of her beneath it all? She couldn't trust anyone here, because, beyond all pretenses, they were all doing as she did every day – simply pretending, watching each other, waiting for the moment to come that would mean their advantage over her was clear.

The memory cascaded down her spine like a bucket of cold water, looking into Xemnas' gaze as he pushed a piece of paper across the table toward her. Perhaps the worst portion of her existence here was the part that meant that, regardless of all assurances to the contrary, she was just as alone here as she had been in Traverse Town, surrounded by beating hearts in living bodies. Just as alone as she had been at home, that place she could just barely remember.

"Your progress on theory notwithstanding," Xemnas went on, as she studied the slip of paper, "there is a small matter in Traverse Town that has caught my attention. It seems that the shopkeepers there have been complaining of ghosts, raiding their storerooms at night. When they go to investigate the strange noises that they hear, they say they are bodily thrown back, as though from some strange force." Xemnas flipped a hand with languid weariness. "Doubtless it is nothing, but if a truly formidable being is behind it all – perhaps some powerful Heartless, or a new arrival from a destroyed world – it would serve the Organization well to procure its use for future endeavors. Do you agree?"

Lunarex gave the newspaper clipping a thorough once-over. It featured Cid standing before an empty garage, hefting a spear and looking thoroughly livid. "I certainly do," she said. Then she glanced up. "But, sir, in the event that the suspect fails to respond to persuasion…"

"Must I spell it out for you?" Xemnas sighed. "I was under the impression that Demyx had already departed my chambers…"

She winced internally at the rebuke, inclining her head. "My apologies, Superior," Lunarex murmured. "I was simply concerned for the mission. My expertise does not lie in fighting. Nor am I interested in engaging in combat, personally speaking. I wondered if perhaps there was an alternative you had in mind."

"Alternative?" Xemnas breathed, as though in wonder. His gaze was making her profoundly uncomfortable. "Use whatever means that you find necessary, Lunarex. And may I suggest that you rethink your attitude toward battle, as well, for Keyblade masters tend to strike first and ask questions later." He motioned her away. "You are dismissed. I expect a report on your findings tomorrow – if I am not there to receive it, Saix or Xigbar will take it in my stead."

Lunarex nodded deferentially, rose, and left.

Had she been human, she would have been angered by Xemnas' refusal to accept her reluctance to fight. As she was, though, she understood his position. The Organization had no use for someone who was limited in ability. She was here because she had proven herself capable of contributing to the welfare of their goals. From an objective standpoint, it made perfect sense that if she were to fail, Lunarex did not, strictly speaking, _deserve _to exist. Inasmuch as she was capable of existence.

And yet, her spirit protested against the injustice of it. Just because we are heartless creatures, she thought, is that any excuse to act without regard for others? Surely we still remember what it was like – to be fragile and wanting, dependent on others' approval. Surely we still remember mercy and grace. Humanity is of the spirit and the intellect, not purely the heart. Is guilt truly the only thing holding people back from sin and Darkness?

Without remorse, are we all just psychopathic creatures, incomplete people whose existence depends on their usefulness? Or is this all just a construct of Xemnas? Why does everyone trust Xemnas when he never had morality to begin with? And if he's the one responsible for this loathsome state, why do we play along with his whims?

Lunarex drew the newspaper clipping from her pocket, distracting herself by reading it once again. Her eyes lingered on the grainy, black-and-white grimace of Cid as he stood in front of his looted warehouses. She stared at him for a long moment, and suddenly, a realization came upon her like a block of concrete from the sky. Her eyes widened, and she stopped midstride. A distinct feeling had begun to grow in her chest, something akin to the sensation of falling, something that made her skin crawl.

The article had never mentioned the name of the shopkeeper. In the caption, he was referred to only by his profession. Her own stay in Traverse Town had been brief, limited to that single alleyway. _How had she known he was called Cid?_

She couldn't breathe. Her limbs were shaking uncontrollably, tingling all over. She leaned against the wall, gulping down air and willing the eerie feeling to pass. The fragile paper trembled in her hand, and she balled it up and stuffed it in a pocket, suddenly furious at her own weakness. Then she opened a portal, the Darkness swirling around her.

To hell with hanging around here. She was tired of being held accountable, tired of being watched by pale insubstantial shadows, tired of being. She would complete the mission, and never mind telling Xigbar where she had gone. He could figure it out for himself.

She stepped through the portal, feeling Darkness dissolve her, and directed the oily tendrils that animated her spirit with two words – _Traverse Town._


End file.
